Pakistan chief Butt warns of split in world cricket

LONDON (Reuters) - World cricket is in danger of a damaging split if countries like England and Australia refuse to tour Asia after this week's bloodshed in India, Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) chairman Ejaz Butt warned on Saturday.

England cut short their one-day series in India after nearly 200 people died in the Mumbai attacks. Captain Kevin Pietersen said there was still doubt whether they would return to play two tests before Christmas.

Pakistan have also suffered from teams refusing to tour because of security threats, most recently when the ICC Champions Trophy was postponed in September.

"It's a mutual thing. If they don't come we won't go ... you can't have separate pockets with people playing over here and England playing only Australia, that's not the essence of the game," Butt told BBC radio.

"You can't have two separate groups ... because to continue to not participate in cricket in this part of the world in India and Sri Lanka, then it will be very difficult."

ICC MEETING

Butt said cricket could ease its troubles but said there needed to be co-operation between all the test-playing nations.

"I think we will come out of it ... we talked about it at the last ICC (International Cricket Council) meeting but these problems are there and they need to be tackled," he added.

"It will be very difficult if there are two sets of rules for two sets of countries and there become two blocks (of countries) in the ICC. That would be a very dangerous thing."

On Friday, Pietersen said England would not return for the tests in India unless their safety was guaranteed.

"We will make every effort to come back and play in the tests but at the end of the day if it's not safe we won't be coming back," Pietersen told the BBC.